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Pacific Rim Wiki:Manual of Style
MANUAL OF STYLE This Manual of Style is a guide applicable to all articles. It reflects the wiki's standards, and is intended to help editors to produce articles with language, layout, and formatting that are consistent, clear, and precise. General principles Internal consistency An overriding principle is that style and formatting choices should be consistent within a article, though not necessarily throughout as a whole. Consistency within an article promotes clarity and cohesion. Stability of articles The Administration team has ruled that editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style, and that revert-warring over optional styles is unacceptable. Where there is disagreement over which style to use in an article, refer to an Administrator. Follow the sources Many points of usage, such as the treatment of proper names, can be decided by observing the style adopted by high-quality sources. Unless there is a clear reason to do otherwise, follow the usage of reliable English-language secondary sources on the subject. If the sources can be shown to be unrepresentative of current English usage, follow current English usage instead—and consult more sources. Clarity Writing should be clear and concise. Plain English works best: avoid jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording. Verb tense ;Use present tense when referring to human characters, Kaiju, or Jaegers in their respective articles. Be they living, dead or destroyed, character articles should reflect the actions of the characters as they happened in the present, not in the past. If past tense is ever needed to be used for a character that deceased/destroyed in its opening header, it should typically only refer to their professional status in the universe itself, not who they're related/married to or friends with: :"Insert name here] is a category V Kaiju", "name here is the wife of so-and-so. name here was a profession here" ;instead of :"name here was a cateogry V Kaiju", "name here was the wife of so-and-so. name here was a profession here". ;Use past tense in overview articles referring to gameplay or story elements. Prime examples are events that occur within the universe of Pacific Rim or the history of characters (like main "Kaiju" or "Jaeger" pages), programs (Jaeger Program) or locations and events (Shatterdome, San Francisco). This includes general summary of real world material like, the film, comic or any other media that deals with an overall subject and not a single character. Past tense is encouraged when writing articles for actors, producers and writers that participated in the film. ;Do Not include phrases like "his ultimate fate is unknown" or "what happened to the ship after that is a mystery." "Kaiju" vs. "Kaijus" ;The term "Kaiju" is both singular and plural. Alternate use of the term "Kaiju" includes "Kaiju's", but never "Kaijus". The latter is incorrect. Editing standards General standards #Please categorize articles and insert navigational templates appropriately. #Please do not insert a heading, such as Summary , if there is only a single heading within the article. Just don't put a heading until you feel the need to insert two, and then you may create two. #Whenever inserting pictures in "thumb" format, such as , be sure to add a caption like . #List all references at the end articles. It should not be: Stacker Pentecost said, and I quote this from Pacific Rim, "Today, we are cancelling the apocalypse." Instead, use the reference tag if necessary, or else, write: Pacific Rim, ("Today, we are cancelling the apocalypse") #Any media (i.e. Novels) and level title must be written in italics. #Refrain from using slashes whenever possible. Instead, work the word "or" into the sentence, or figure out some other way of stating it. Avoid making multiple edits in an article is one of the many wikis with an achievement feature. Whenever one contributes to the wiki at a certain amount, one is rewarded of achievements. Though it sounds fun, excessive amount of edits in an article can lead to a block. As such, editors are reminded to edit an article to a maximum of three. A simple way of avoiding this problem is to mark your contributions as "Minor Edit", or practice using the Preview button which allows you to review the contributions you made before saving them. Use the "Minor Edit" button As a corollary to the above, if you are making a minor edit (e.g. fixing a spelling error or tweaking formatting), check the "This is a minor edit" button below the Summary box before saving the page. Again, this will make things easier for the rest of us. Use the Preview Button The preview button is right next to the save edit button, and is there for a reason. It's your own personal spell checker, link checker, whatever-else checker. Use it. Users that purposefully do not preview edits as to inflate their edit count are not well regarded among users, and you may find yourself in trouble with an administrator. Do NOT link to the current page In other words, a page should not link to itself. If it is attempted, the link will simply turn into bold text. Link once A given page should only contain one link to any other page. If a page links to Stacker Pentecost in one place, then that should be the only link to Stacker Pentecost on that page. Typically this link should be the first instance of the term in the article. Do NOT use conversational style This is an information site. It should read like Wikipedia, not like your diary. *Check your spelling and grammar. Do not use internet slang (ex. "How r u?" or "c u 2nite"). If you are not 100% sure about the way a word is spelled, type it into Google or Dictionary.com. If you know that you are not the strongest speller, compose your edits in a word processor like Microsoft Word or use an Internet browser like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome, which has spell-checking built in. *Do not "reply" to content others have posted. If you think a particular point warrants discussion, post on the article's Discussion page. If you are 100% sure that something should be changed and do not think a discussion is necessary, just change it. Dialogue goes only on articles' Discussion pages or the forum. *Never abbreviate the names of characters, places, or anything. Wherever possible, use the full name of a character the first time they are mentioned. After the first mention, you may refer to "Stacker Pentecost" as "Marshall Pentecost" or "Mako Mori" as "Mako" and so forth. Stubs If you do not know enough information on a topic, or you know there's more, add a stub to it. To do so, try this: * And people will know that it's a stub by looking at the stub category. The template is put at the top of the page. Spoilers We warn users at the front page that the Pacific Rim Wiki contains spoilers for the film and all its related media. However, as a common courtesy to those who do not always defer to the main page, users are encouraged to use a spoiler tag: * And people will know that it's a a particular article contains information they do not wish to see just yet. The template is put at the top of the page. Do NOT sign your edits All contributions are appreciated, but if every user left their mark on every contribution they made, the Wiki would be nothing but signatures. If you have made an edit that you are particularly proud of (such as a transcript or screenshot), the correct place to take credit is on your own user page. If you do not have a user account, we respect your anonymity, but your edits will remain anonymous, too. Do sign your talk posts If you make a post on a discussion page, please sign it. If you have a user account, this is as easy as typing ~~~~ at the end of your post. If you do not have a user account, just sign it with your name or nickname so everybody can tell who is who when reading long conversations. Even better, create an account anyway and use the signature method described. There really is no reason not to if you are going to stick around. Using images and files *Add only canon images (concept art, promotional images, screenshots, etc.), not fanart or sketches of Jaegers, characters or locations. *Avoid uploading pictures you don't have a purpose for, unless they can add to a subject gallery. Before uploading, read for more information on image use. External links External links are links that point to sites other than the Wiki. The links should be in the form of a bullet list. External links typically look like this: *[http://www.panpacificdefense.com/#/shatterdome The Website: Title of the article] Headers/Headings Never make a header title as links. Instead, use the Main Redirect Template and add it under the header. Additionally, avoid adding the Ref Tag to the header. See also *[[wikipedia:Wikipedia:MOS|'Wikipedia':Manual of Style]] Category:Help Category:Policy